Mom called with information about an offer from Wild Blue for their "Exede" service, which proffers 4G/LTE class speeds for the same money she's been paying.. $50 a month for 7.5GB a month. She comments that the current speed is dirt slow (perhaps 2-3x dialup), and she often 'plays solitaire' while waiting for a page to load on her iMac.

Latency is also too dang high to use iChat or equivalent.. skype voice functions, but it's not a good audio experience. Again.. latency. It's a long time for the signal to go up into geosynch orbit and back.

So I'm doing a bit of research on it. So far all the 'reviewers' are reviewing from the specs handed out by marketing wonks, so that's useless.

TIA !

(and no.. she's too far in the boonies for any sort of wire to reach her. She is supposedly within Verizon's 4G service, but the performance and GB limits are less than what Exede is offering.)

I am in the same position. I have read bad reviews for Wild Blue and Hughes; service and customer service.

If she uses Verizon, she can buy the little Hot Spot, I think they call it, on ebay for well under $100 and not have a two-year contract. One of the plans is $50 for 5 GB. She can run 5 devices off of it.

Most of the satellite internet services had significant caps on downloads the last time I looked. Clear wireless internet is one of the better ones if she can get it.

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in tha 510.

As a Hughes.net prisoner customer, I'm also looking at Exede... but I'm hoping a local wireless ISP expands their line of sight area to my valley first...

Exede looks promising, but there's no getting around the latency issue (speed of light and all that...).

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Paul F.
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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
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Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
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Eureka, CA

Clear is not in her area (about 5 miles away), but also has significant issues (they had a big issue about not paying Sprint for their bundled broadband earlier this year).

She's been using WildBlue for about 8 years now. It's far, far better than dialup. The cost compared to GB/month is far lower than Verizon or AT&T (AT&T isn't good in her area either).

The *best* solution would be to build a solar powered wimax mesh system and link it to a stub of the local cable TV broadband that comes to a house about a mile away over a hill. I actually played with an old Dish satellite antenna and a USB wifi dongle at the top of the hill 1/2 mile from the house, and I was able to snarf at least three household wifi base stations. But I don't live close enough to put together a high maintenance homebrew system like that.

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cbelt3
Clear is not in her area (about 5 miles away), but also has significant issues (they had a big issue about not paying Sprint for their bundled broadband earlier this year).

I did not experience any end user problems earlier this year. Not sure how long Clear will prove sustainable. They are making noise about switching to LTE. Not sure if the roadmap is viable, but I'll enjoy the service for how ever long it lasts.

The biggest problem with Clear is coverage. I have pretty good luck with coverage, but I live in a fairly small, yet densely populated state. My norming travel radius has pretty good coverage.

I'm not up to speed on this stuff, but how does the Verizon Hot Spot mentioned above compare with satellite internet?

[www.ebay.com]

It's 5 GB capped for $50. I don't know the speed, but I guess there is not the latency problem and if you buy your own modem, there is no contract. Also, you can take it with you if you have a laptop. I'm looking into this and have pretty much ruled out satellite.

My Hughes.net service gives me download cap of 425MB/24 hours -- not bad. The big problem I have is the upload speed, which is essentially dial-up, being 20kB/s. Download is OK, not great, but OK.

The issue of latency rules out VoIP even if the upload were fast. So we badly need access to EVDO or better, LTE, here on the west side of Puget Sound. We're deep in cove with high surround hills, so cell phone service is erratic at best, although texting seems to work OK. Where is the WiMax?

Have thought of trying a cheap cell repeater with antenna on top of house to see if it can boost signal enough to get the 3G coverage from Sprint. Not optimistic...

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What it is, man, a low-down and funky feelin'

Cantenna (commercial, plastic) worked for us at the cabin for several years.

Could easily pull a signal from at least 1/2 mile away from a normal wireless router placed next to a window.

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cbelt3
The *best* solution would be to build a solar powered wimax mesh system and link it to a stub of the local cable TV broadband that comes to a house about a mile away over a hill. I actually played with an old Dish satellite antenna and a USB wifi dongle at the top of the hill 1/2 mile from the house, and I was able to snarf at least three household wifi base stations. But I don't live close enough to put together a high maintenance homebrew system like that.

Looked into Exede -- signed up. If this works, goodbye Hughes. Exede claims it will work with Skype -- don't know how they or I deal with latency....

$209.xx upfront cost with leased gear, $150 of which is "activation fee." Got the entry level plan, which with lease is $60/mo. 7.5GB of download per month. You can buy extra GB if needed. If you exceed your allotment, you drop down to the current Hughes speed, according to the rep., which is essentially a 10X reduction. I think I can live with that.

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What it is, man, a low-down and funky feelin'

I use Hughes Net Gen4 is the next generation of high-speed satellite Internet .Its Maximum Speeds 15 Mbps